Chapter 8 #2
“Just leave and go get him. You smell terrible.” It was starting to irk Elm. It was an unsettling feeling, somewhat familiar to him now, so he was aware the only way to abate it was by bathing in Levi’s much more pleasing pheromones. “It’s making me sick.”
“Don’t worry, that shouldn’t be permanent.
The attachment phase? Right now, the Leviathan’s the only one potent enough to rival your pheromones, which is why your body craves him.
I’ve run some tests, and while I believe you’ll be a dominant omega forever, it seems highly likely that once you gain control of yourself, you’ll be able to tolerate the smell of lesser alphas. ”
“You think?” He hated that he was happy hearing that, especially since he was still pretty sure they weren’t going to let him leave this room alive ever, but still. “This is extremely debilitating.”
“Levi is the strongest dominant alpha I’ve ever encountered. He reacts similarly to lesser omegas, but he can adjust his senses now and the flow of his pheromones to combat them.”
Elm bet everyone also knew better than to leak their pheromones around him.
“You should be able to do the same,” she concluded.
“Should isn’t all that comforting,” he lied.
“Which is why I’m telling you to cooperate. We’ll both get the answers we desire then. It’s a win-win.”
“Until I find a knife in my back or a blaster pressed to my temple.” He sighed and dropped onto the mattress, most of the fight having left, even though he was still frustrated. “You said he’s the strongest you know. Is that why he was able to resist me while I was in heat?”
“Several guards had to be sedated,” she surprised him by saying. Then she took it a step further by giving him a thumbs up. “Super impressive. They aren’t even allowed in the hallway, and you still affected them.”
“But not him.”
“Don’t take it personally. His self-control is unrivaled. His ruts operate like clockwork, and I’ve never seen him show an interest in anyone. I would joke that he’s a robot, but I saw him bleed once, so there goes that theory.”
“Once?” he drawled, unable to keep back the chuckle.
“You called us monsters?” She nodded. “That isn’t untrue.”
“Do you know what the Leviathan is?” Elm asked. “In mythology, I mean.”
“A giant sea dragon,” Fiora replied without skipping a beat. “Word of advice? No matter how badly you want it, don’t let yourself get eaten.”
* * *
The first three days were bearable. Elm played along and allowed Fiora to run her tests, answering her questions honestly, because she was right and he did also want to know how he worked now.
But then came day four.
He felt off the whole day, bad tempered and easily annoyed.
He snapped at her more than once, and couldn’t stop himself even though he knew it wouldn’t get him anywhere.
She was sort of his one “friend” in this place, had stopped referring to him as synthetic and started calling him by his name.
But he couldn’t help it. Felt less like himself with each passing hour.
By day five, he’d scratched at his own skin hard enough to draw blood. Pheromones flicked off his body whenever she tried to get near, keeping her well on the other side of the cage with the thick bars between them.
She looked concerned—not for him, for her lab rat, but that was still enough to make him nervous too.
Day six he refused to eat. Wasn’t hungry. Wasn’t thirsty. Wasn’t horny either. He just…wanted something. Something he couldn’t put a name to. It felt an awful lot like all the oxygen in the room had been sucked out and he was left gasping for air.
Something vital was missing.
On day seven, he had enough reason left to finally figure out what it was.
He’d been staring at the high back chair for well over six hours when it occurred to him that this sensation was a lot like the one he’d experienced the night of his heat. When he’d locked eyes with the alpha, and begged and pleaded for his touch.
When Levi had refused, remaining just out of reach.
The difference was the alpha had been present then, making it easier for Elm to understand what he craved.
He hadn’t seen Levi once since that night.
It was as though he’d been completely forgotten by everyone except Fiora.
Old insecurities reared their ugly heads. The feeling of inadequacy, of unimportance. Of being forgotten, like what had happened when Kian had found his biological family and all but disappeared for four years.
Did Levi think he could drag Elm all the way here, torture him whenever he felt like it, and then ghost him?
“You aren’t thinking rationally,” Fiora said on day eight, when Elm was still refusing to eat, and his aggressive pheromones prevented her from taking even a single step into the room.
She stood in the hallway, holding a tray of food he had no interest in.
“Elm, you’re at risk of going feral again. You need to snap out of it.”
“Alpha,” he demanded, knowing she’d understand he wasn’t calling for her. She wasn’t what he needed.
He knew she’d been trying though. Bathing him in her noxious pheromones whenever she was here.
He’d tolerated it and kept his mouth shut because he’d wondered if she’d been right and he really would adjust. Being addicted to the Leviathan’s pheromones was not a life, and Elm was willing to do anything he could to break that attachment.
But a week later, she still smelled like garbage, and he still felt unsatisfied.
And he was slowly losing his mind.
It was torture.
Something had to be done.
Fiora made a call, and he could see her standing there, talking in a low tone to someone, but he couldn’t make out the words. Whatever the person on the other end responded with, she didn’t seem pleased.
Which made Elm more upset.
She wasn’t the alpha he needed, but they’d developed a sort of repertoire this past week, and he’d picked up on her moods, could read her micro expressions.
Kian had never thought of him as inadequate. Yeah, maybe Elm hadn’t been raised for the mafia lifestyle, didn’t have fancy trainers, or—at the time—pheromones to use to defend himself, but he’d had something better.
He’d had a big brother.
He’d grown up with Kian Erskine. They shared a last name, and Kian had taken that sort of thing seriously.
“Fiora,” Elm made himself sound pathetic, weak, pulling back as much of his aggressive pheromones as he could in an attempt to coax her forward. “Please. I don’t think I can control it. I need you to knock me out before it’s too late.”
She ended the call without another word and rushed into the room, already clicking on the holopad in her right hand. The cell door unlatched before she reached it, and she moved to the metal table tucked in the corner, setting the device down to grab a syringe.
“Can you resist a moment longer?” she asked as she stuck the needle in a bottle and filled the vial with a clear liquid.
“Hurry.”
“Going feral won’t be beneficial to any of us. I’ll put you out and then run some tests, figure out what’s going on, okay?” She came over, and Elm sat back against the stone wall, turning some to present his right shoulder to her.
The second she knelt on the mattress, he struck.
His pheromones blasted out of him, targeted, making them even more potent, the syringe slipped from her fingers and he caught it, slamming it into her thigh and pushing the plunger.
She growled and tried to fight back, but the drug was fast acting, and within seconds she was out, slumping into a heap on the cold concrete floor.
Elm tossed the needle and then grabbed her hand, pulling until he could fit her thumb against the scanner at the bottom of the wrist cuffs. Her biometrics were linked, as well as her device, since she’d been in charge of releasing him twice daily so he could use the bathroom.
The cuffs came undone and he stood.
It felt wrong leaving her on the floor like that, so he helped her onto the mattress before snapping one of the cuffs around her arm.
With her out of the way, Elm prowled forward, exiting the cell.
It’d be a good chance to make a run for it.
But it wasn’t freedom he was after.
His mind slipped even further away as he started the hunt.